Town Square

Pleasanton Garbage Tax

Original post made
by Jill, Birdland,
on Feb 5, 2013

If you look at your latest Pleasanton Garbage bill you will notice the rates went up 5%. However, Pleasanton Garbage is only getting 4% of it. The City of Pleasanton added a 1% tax to your garbage and they buried it in the increase. This was the first I knew that the city added a garbage tax. When did this come before the city council? I have not seen any articles about this new Pleasanton tax either.

Our state income taxes have gone up, state sales tax has gone up, there is now a 1% tax on lumber that was added without most people's knowledge, and now a Pleasanton garbage tax.

Posted by Laura
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Feb 7, 2013 at 7:42 am

Great question Jill - I wonder what the process is that the city goes through to add a tax to services such as garbage pickup, and how is that money earmarked? There may be a lot of other services out there that have been "quietly" taxed recently. There are several new candidates for city council being announced - a good question for each of them. I'd like to see a listing (of taxed services) appear in the Pleasanton Weekly.

Of the 5%... 1% goes to city, the other 4 goes to the company. This is ridiculous, their rates are already high, then instead of increasing rates (unjustified) they add a tax. I asked if they do an annual free city wide pick up, like other cities, annoyed rep replied nope,Pleasanton doesn't do that. So whats the 4% tax for?? Is it because do we so well recycling, garbage is now getting taxed to make up for it?

Posted by olfthfl
a resident of Pleasanton Meadows
on Feb 7, 2013 at 9:34 am

To AMom: Don't take it personal. No matter what you call Pleasanton Garbage Service for you're going to get a rude response even when they're in the wrong, like not picking up one of your containers. Apparently it's a prerequisite for working there.

Posted by Cronyism Reins
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Feb 7, 2013 at 10:13 am

OK, just what is the crony deal between the City of Pleasanton and Pleasanton Garbage Service? PGS seems to get whatever they want out of the city, including getting rate increases pretty much at will, stealth "taxes" primarily for PGS' benefit, and no competitive bidding on the franchise whatsoever. Is this just a flat-out case of PGS bribing the City Council members for decades, the good-old-boy/girl network that reins in P-town, or is some other dark force involved? People should show up in great numbers at the next few City Council meetings to raise h-e-double-toothpicks!

Posted by Ben Johansen
a resident of Birdland
on Feb 7, 2013 at 2:09 pm

Mr. Soccer, there was an article regarding the new 1% lumber tax in CA. It's another unnecessary, burdensome and costly tax, that went into effect. Some stores are not charging it yet because they either don't have their POS software updated, can't afford to upgrade their software, or because it's so confusing, they don't exactly know what to tax. Another whacked out tax on consumers, it basically shifts the cost of forest land regulation from timber companies to consumers.

Since Jan. 1, California retailers have been required to collect an extra 1 percent tax on sales of certain lumber products including plywood, 2-by-4s and unfinished decking, fencing and railings. However, products that have had a little more work done - such as indoor finished flooring, baseboards, doors and windows - are exempt. This is a nightmare for home improvement stores to figure out and I don't think there is any point of sale software out there yet that allows you to tax different rates for different products. This was passed by the democrats majority last year and signed by gov. moonbeam. These are the same legislature members who say that housing pricing is too high so we need to subsidize housing, and at the same time they add a tax to the supplies of building a house to make it even more expensive. The democrats in the legislature will stop at nothing to implement a new tax.